Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Bill Clinton's Biggest Blow Job Made A Giant Sucking Sound

Seventeen years ago today, then U.S. President William Jefferson Clinton, signed the North American Free Trade Agreement into law.

It must be noted that this was not some liberal Democrat act of malfeasance...as it was ceremonially signed one year earlier on December 17, 1992 by Republican President George H.W. Bush. Which, of course, further illustrates the point I repeatedly expound upon - that the Republicans and the Democrats are essentially two sides of the same coin, and that their supposed platform differences are merely weapons of mass distraction to divide and conquer we the sheeple while both sides continue to institute the Brave New World Order agenda of globalization.

But it became law under Bill, so we must give him the ultimate credit. Monica Lewinsky was not the biggest or best blow job of the 1990's. No, that was the blow job he gave to manufacturing jobs in the U.S. when he signed NAFTA into law.

Oh the irony...As I finished writing that last paragraph, my business phone rang and I've just completed a preliminary conversation with a potential client. His background story stated that he worked for both a big name plumbing and faucet company that has the word "AMERICAN" as part of it's name (I will not say the exact company name...but you can figure it out)....and he just got laid off because this "AMERICAN" company is moving it's factory to Mexico. Prior to that stint, he worked for a prominent lightbulb production factory (another well known brand), that moved to Mexico, necessitating his move to the plumbing factory.

NAFTA opened up Mexico's borders to U.S. businesses. What used to be an $18 per hour manufacturing job in America became a $3 per hour job in Mexico. No manufacturer wishing to remain competitive in America could possibly pay $18-20 per hour here when the same product can be produced right across the border in Mexico for just $3 per hour and then shipped back to the U.S. free of charge.

In the 1992 Presidential Debate between Perot, Clinton and Bush Sr., Ross Perot's very first statement dealt with NAFTA and it's future implications should it be ratified:

That's right at the top of my agenda. We've shipped millions of jobs overseas and we have a strange situation because we have a process in Washington where after you've served for a while you cash in and become a foreign lobbyist, make $30,000 a month; then take a leave, work on Presidential campaigns, make sure you got good contacts, and then go back out. Now if you just want to get down to brass tacks, the first thing you ought to do is get all these folks who've got these one-way trade agreements that we've negotiated over the years and say, "Fellows, we'll take the same deal we gave you." And they'll gridlock right at that point because, for example, we've got international competitors who simply could not unload their cars off the ships if they had to comply -- you see, if it was a two-way street -- just couldn't do it. We have got to stop sending jobs overseas.

To those of you in the audience who are business people, pretty simple: If you're paying $12, $13, $14 an hour for factory workers and you can move your factory South of the border, pay a dollar an hour for labor, hire young -- let's assume you've been in business for a long time and you've got a mature work force -- pay a dollar an hour for your labor, have no health care -- that's the most expensive single element in making a car -- have no environmental controls, no pollution controls and no retirement, and you don't care about anything but making money, there will be a giant sucking sound going south.

Ross Perot was right. Some may say prophetic. Nah, he was just a smart, successful businessman that understood the ultimate outcome if NAFTA were ratified. It was common freakin' sense.

While there's a lot more to our current economic mess than just NAFTA, it surely has played a significant role in today's present unemployment rates and there disproportionate number of men who don't have any blue collar manufacturing jobs in their home States.

They got sucked down -- and indeed as my phone call a few minutes ago confirmed, are still sucking them down -- to Mexico.

15 comments:

knepper
said...

It might be more accurate to say that both Democrats and RINO Pseudo-Republicans like George HW Bush have favored NAFTA. I have no doubt that it is part of their plan to force the US, Mexico and Canada together into a socialist mega-state. This is why they refuse to stop the flow of illegal immigrants despite the unpopularity of open borders. It has been their policy to bring the US economy down to the level of third world sinkholes, and they are succeeding wildly in their plans.

A welder I talked to years ago said his welding rods were made in Montreal,(Canada was also affected by "free trade") and after free trade they were made in Mexico. Of course the price wasn't cheaper. NAFTA sounds like a globalist agenda to shut down industrial society in the west like Maury Strong admitted to.

Oops. Guess you need to change your blog title to more accurately reflect your sudden departure from libertarian philosophy. Liberty is liberty. Restrictions of liberties (social or economic) is done in an attempt to craft particular outcomes and pick winners and losers. So you're for liberty, except when (at least superficially) it causes results that you don't like?

Way too much evidence out there however that although yes, there are some pains inherent in free-trade, that the overall economy benefits. When the overall economy benefits, society benefits.

Sucks to be the one (the one of many) who has lost a good-paying job as a result of this. But do we really want to inhibit progress just to artificially (and temporarily) preserve a few jobs?

I've been reading your posts (lurking) for a while now and it seems that you definitely have libertarian leanings and I enjoy your stuff, especially the red pill/blue pill stuff. But I just had to call you out on this one because I believe that you have it just so wrong.

If you're looking for some supporting resources, Don Boudreaux over at Cafe Hayek is a good place to start. He is awesome!

Sorry Aaron, I mistook this blog for a discussion of libertarian principles. I think you're looking for different form of government to look after you. Perhaps North Korea might suit your desired lifestyle a little better.

Oops. Guess you need to change your blog title to more accurately reflect your sudden departure from libertarian philosophy. Liberty is liberty.

Please note that my blog title is "small l" libertarian.

I am by no means a Libertarian political party activist.

Furthermore, while I agree in the liberty of free trade, I'm not one of those "libertarians" that believes in globalism. I am adamantly opposed to open borders and "free" trade.

I'm all for free trade within the borders of a country in which all businesses have to abide by the same laws and regulations.

But 'free trade' under the banner of globalism is merely resulting in precisely what we see today: the absolute gutting of entire industries as multi-national corporations with no loyalty to any home country view all human beings as nothing more than resources and/or niche markets. Fuck "free trade" if that means we no longer have manufacturing jobs because communist slave labor in china produces consumer goods for far cheaper.

I'm "libertarian" because I believe in liberty for the individual citizen. Allowing giant corporations to outsource jobs and entire industries from this country (causing higher unemployment and more dependency on Government welfare programs) to third world countries where the resources are cheaper is not my idea of "free trade."

Free trade on a globalization scale is only fair, equitable under the exact same rule - a one world government.

Keoni's views aren't that libertarian but that's a good thing. The libertarians are just useful idiots for the depopulationists. It used to be that a man could have a job where he could earn enough money to support a family. Now it takes both a husband and a wife and that still isn't enough. This depresses fertility rates, and it is by design. By shipping good paying jobs away from the US, the depopulationists get what they want, people reproducing less if they are at all.

Thomas, the reason it takes two incomes to have the same standard of living is because of useful leftist idiots like you. I really can't see the 'libertarian' angle here.

Globalization has also hurt Mexico. They could not compete with Chinese being paid 50 cents per hour either.

NAFTA is one issue. So are taxes and too many regulations that make it difficult for businesses to prosper. I would spend more if I had more money.

Some want to create some ludicrous tariff increase. The tariffs for the US were orginally intended to fund the government in the early days and became protectionists for a time. Those days are no longer reality given the number of raw resources America imports and the competition overseas.

Maybe if most countries currencies were backed by a monetary system with tangible assets, these pay differences would not be so glaring.

I am an American man, and I have decided to boycott American women. In a nutshell, American women are the most likely to cheat on you, to divorce you, to get fat, to steal half of your money in the divorce courts, don't know how to cook or clean, don't want to have children, etc. Therefore, what intelligent man would want to get involved with American women?

American women are generally immature, selfish, extremely arrogant and self-centered, mentally unstable, irresponsible, and highly unchaste. The behavior of most American women is utterly disgusting, to say the least.

This blog is my attempt to explain why I feel American women are inferior to foreign women (non-American women), and why American men should boycott American women, and date/marry only foreign (non-American) women.

The thing that bothered me about NAFTA was the ratification process. There were two unconstitutional actions taken WRT NAFTA ratification: 1) involvement of the House of Representatives; and 2) the simple majority votes taken to approve it.

NAFTA is a treaty, not a law. It is an agreement between two or more nations. As such, it's the Senate's role to provide advice and consent, with 2/3 present required to vote in the affirmative. This was not done when NAFTA was approved.

The House of Representatives had NO BUSINESS WHATSOEVER being involved in approving NAFTA-none! Treaties are the sole purview of the Senate in the legislative branch; the House has nothing to do with treaties, per Article II, Section 2 of the US Constitution.

Also, per Article II, Section 2, a 2/3 vote is required! Repeat: a 2/3 vote is required! This was not done, either; NAFTA was approved by simple majority of both houses.

What I found disheartening about the whole NAFTA episode was that: the media didn't raise any questions or objections to this; even Rush Limbaugh, who's all about the Constitution now, didn't bother pointing this out at the time! Also, the American people didn't raise any objections to the illegal and unconstitutional trickery used to enact NAFTA. The American people are more ignorant than I thought...

Keoni, you are an objective guy who is interested in the truth so suspend your disbelief for a moment for what I am about to introduce to you just in case you may be wrong on this free trade point. Normally I wouldn't care but because you are Hawaiian too and I agree vehemently with almost everything you say I am going to give my best shot.

Cheap stuff is how we get richer. Think about it. The reason stuff is cheap is because it is plentiful. The reason stuff can be plentiful is because we are making it efficiently. Efficiency means that the person (and things) who is making it is also the person who is the most productive. Prices help us figure out who this person is. Yes this person may be Chinese or Chinese American, but economically this distinction is irrelevant. If we want to have access to the universe's full potential for material well-being we want Chinese, Pekinese, and Waimanalo-ans to trade with us, Space Aliens too...regardless of their Kling-on slave labour laws. I now refer you to Bastiat. Please have a read; http://bastiat.org/en/petition.html

You talk about the manufacturing sector being hollowed out. In terms of the percentage of employment this is true. In the US the agricultural sector has also lost out on the percentage of those employed. 200 years ago 98% of the population lived and worked on farms to feed the urban population. Today the ratio is reversed, 2% work in agriculture to feed not only America but much of the rest of the world as well. That is the fruit of greater productivity, and should be celebrated and not the source of nostalgic lament.

Similarly, the manufacturing sector has gone from employing about 20% of the workforce in 1970 to a little under 10% today. However, like the agriculture example the aggregate output of US manufacturing has more than doubled since the 1970s. I was shocked by this too. Check out the data here. http://mjperry.blogspot.co.uk/2010/07/increased-worker-productivity-has.html

Yes, this is REAL output accounted for inflation. So while manufacturing jobs are being lost, output is increasing. This is ultimately a good thing, because now the unemployed can be reemployed to can produce something additional that people also need. In all likelihood they will not be able to earn as much as they were for time or perhaps forever. But reality changed, nothing is permanent, and the only way to live in excess of what you can actually produce is to steal from others explicitly or implicitly by limiting the trading options your consumers have with others.